Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-05-13
RARE, OLD DOCUMENTS
IN UNCLE SANS BIG AUTOGRAPH
COLLECTIONS.
Curious Original Papers of the Depart
ments-The Confederate Kecords--Lin-
coins Land Claim, Bushels of Bibles,
Supreme Court Admissions, Etc.

| shOhts-Auc SOuIcuerdto ft6cOr0SasLtn-
coins Land Claim, Bushels of Bibles.
Supreme Court Admissions, Etc.
Especial Correspondence
WASHINGTON, May q
Many OF the most interesting possessions of
| our government are never seen by the stran-
| ger. The great departments of Washington
are packed full of curious autograph papers
and rare documents The treasury has files
enough to carpet any state of the union, and
the state department has important autograph
letters describing the inside history of every
| event which has taken place during the past
100 years. 1t has diaries of George Washing
| ton, almanacs of Thomas jefferson with his
marginal notes. and it contains, | am told.
| letters which if published would not leave the
| characters of some of our heroes of the past
! as high on the scale of morality as they
| now stand. The war department has
an Inc 1elegrams sent out from
the White House during the late
| war, and in a book of these found the other
day some curious messages which Abraham
Lincoln sent and in which he mentions his bow
| Tad. 1t has all Of the papers of the Confeder-
ate government as they were captured at
Richmond, and these gathered together in
one room make up the picture of dead ma
ton in a nut she'll The pension Office has
many curious memento which has crept in
among its papers There are claims for GOV
eminent land signed by A. Lincoln, jeff
Davis, Ulysses s. Grant and John A. Logan
| for services in the Mexican war, and l came
| across here paper which showed that James
G Blalne's great grandmother got pension
| Tor the services Of her husband in 1872 There
| are diaries here OF soldiers of the revolution
! sent by their descendants to prove that they
nd thn.a I,,.l1 Ill.
family bibles which have served the same
purpose packed away, but ready to be sent
| out to their owners if demanded
The treasury contains much unwritten
| history iii the Pickett papers which congress
| pad about SO, 600 for, because they contained
| information which aided in establishing the
| loyalty or disloyalty of certain claims made
| upon the government during the rebellion.
and its early revenue files are full of interest,
| -... 49,
| In the first records of the supreme court
you may see the books which be the sigma
lures of Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton
and others of the great lawyers of the past.
| made when they were here first admitted to
| practice. The first record of admissions is
.ept in great vault, and its autographs
make it worth its weight in gold. had the
clerk show it to me one day. 1t is very
ordinary looking blank book, a foot and n
ilalt long and six inches wide. Its covers are
rusty with many years. and its parchment
bound corners have been eaten through bv
time On its back is a red label, and here is
iead The supreme court of the United
States" Opening it, the paper is rough and
uhruled, and its quality is poorer than that
now used as wrapping sheets in corner
grocery. 1t has been discolored by the faded
pink blotters which lie between its leaves and
ln1 tel h.,
years of 100 years old. 1t was begun in 1880
and l noted that for the first twenty wears of
ihe supreme courts existence it had but yerv
little work to do. There are no admissions to
IT'S bar recorded during its first year, and the
hist TWO LAWYERS that practiced before it are
John Caldwell and benjamin R. Morgan.
who were admitted in 1901. Two pages of
his record contain the names of all the
awyers who practiced before the court for
Gwenty-six years, or until 1876 and | note
that Alexander Hamilton, one of the most
noted lawyers of his time, did not see fit to
apply for entrance to it before 1922 Allen
t. Thurman's name is read on the thirty-ffth
page; and after this time the admissions null
tipy and soon fiji volumes instead of pages
The supreme court work has sprung from
nothing Into the busiest and best paving
practice in the country and its lawyers often
receive single fees which run into the tens of
thousands. $50
More interesting than all else, however, as
Tar as original papers are concerned, are the
lille rooms OF congress. The house of repre-
sentatlves has the original documents of all
the papers connected with its history 1t has
every bill that has ever been introduced.
every petition that has ever been presented,
every message that a president has ever sent
and the original reports of the cabinet minis
tiers back to the days when Washington was
president and Alexander Hamilton manared
the treasury II is impossible to conceive The
extent of these papers. They fill thousands
Of bound manuscript volumes, and the brain
reels in the attempted comprehension
Il the matter contained in them.
lie only man in the United States
who has any adequate idea of them is the
hon. Ferris Finch, the file clerk of the house
who has had charge of them for genera
ton, and who has brought them into order
out of chaos. They are now SO arranged that
at moments notice any paper can be found
and as i walked through room after room
walled with them to-day l could see that the
completest classification had been made.
cilnted story after story of narrow iron
stairs surrounded by these dead bones of past
ADMINISTRATIONS, and finally away up under
the dome of the great Capitol building.
where the light comes in only through n
glass covered hole in the roof, found myself
carried back to the earliest days of our gov
ernmsnt 80
All around me, in ledger like volumes, lay |
the messages of the earlier presidents, and |
every book l opened brought to my eyes |
something new and rare i'll antiquarian his |
eory. Many Of the messages were in the |
handwriting of the president who signed |
them, and the reports of the secretaries were |
often made in the same way. l stumbled |
across the paper in which Jefferson an
nounced to congress that he would send writ
ten messages to them and would not come in
person TO deliver speeches as his predecessors
had done. And found the written instruc-
tons, probably kept secret when they were
issued, in which IN our war with the Barbary
powers the American naval officers were in
structed to pay $40, 900 and S30, 600 to secure
immunity for American commerce from their
piratical ships l saw many messages Of
John Adams i'll his bold up and down hand,
as pomlous in pen and ink as their writer
was III person, and as l read them l recalled
Adams vanity and the remark he made when
= friend said: "Mr Adams, you and Gen.
Washington did we'll"
With 10Th :, l. q. Hal. |